Mobile data offloading generally refers to the use of complementary network technologies for delivering data originally targeted for cellular networks. Cellular operators perform and encourage offloading to ease congestion of cellular networks. The primary complementary network technologies used for mobile data offloading are Wi-Fi, “femtocells”/“small cells” and Integrated Mobile Broadcast.
An increasing need for offloading solutions is caused by the explosion of Internet data traffic, especially the growing portion of traffic going through mobile networks. This has been enabled by smartphone devices possessing Wi-Fi capabilities together with large screens and different Internet applications, from browsers to video and audio streaming applications. In addition to smartphones, laptops and tablets with 3G/4G access capabilities are also a major source of mobile data traffic. Further, Wi-Fi is typically much less costly to build than cellular networks.